There’s a lot of steak hiding under sizzle

Sunday

LOS ANGELES — The celebration still swirled, right off the field. Darron Thomas danced up the tunnel, smiling and shouting at anyone and everyone, leading several other teammates like a pied piper.

Jordan Holmes didn’t dance. He lumbered, and it took a long while for him to get to the locker room.

“I’m so tired,” Oregon’s center said a few moments later. “Flat worn-out.”

Which, if we’re paying attention, is exactly what the top-ranked Ducks did to USC’s Trojans.

Flat wore ’em out.

It was Oregon 53, USC 32, and do you understand what happened?

Oregon delivered another emphatic statement, and it’s apparent that if Chip Kelly can keep his bunch focused in November — nothing we’ve seen says he can’t — the Ducks are headed to the BCS championship game, and a shot at a national title.

The highlights from Saturday will be the long runs and deep passes and quick strikes that have defined Kelly’s offense and mesmerized college football.

But we shouldn’t miss the real story. Which is why I made sure afterward to catch up with Holmes — it wasn’t difficult — to get his evaluation.

“Our team is about more than just going fast,” he said.

Got that?

Don’t be fooled by LaMichael James zipping up and down the field, hello Heisman candidacy. Never mind Darron Thomas throwing touchdowns to receivers running free through Monte Kiffin’s secondary.

That’s good stuff, and did you know Oregon has scored 19 touchdowns on drives of less than a minute? In the second quarter, the Ducks scored three touchdowns on five plays. Elapsed time: 75 seconds.

It’s that kind of production that produces the fascination with Oregon’s tempo, and Kelly’s philosophy, and how the heck they do it.

“It’s like the secret to Coke,” Kelly said. “We’re not telling anyone.”

But that’s not why the Ducks are on their way to somewhere they’ve never been. The highlights, fantastic as they can be, disguise the traits that will get them there.

There’s more to the recipe than going fast. The success is much more than flash and sizzle.

There’s serious substance beneath, something very solid.

You want to know why Oregon won Saturday, and why the Ducks will keep winning, rewind to the third quarter.

A series of mistakes had turned a 12-point lead into a three-point deficit. The old stadium was roaring. The Trojans were rolling.

You wondered, once more, if this was when the Ducks would roll over, when a season would go from great to good.

Well, no. Because we’d seen this before, huh? At Tennessee. Against Stanford.

This team doesn’t have a panic button. They’re unfazed, which allows them to be resilient — no, relentless. That’s the most important strength on a team filled with things to like.

Oregon’s underrated defense won’t get much credit, but when it mattered, it stuffed the most talented offense the Ducks have seen so far.

And offensively? It’s why I went looking for the linemen. Because trailing 32-29, Oregon unleashed something new and different.

Jeff Maehl said no one was concerned “because we’re a quick-strike operation.”

But that’s not what happened. Yeah, Thomas hit Maehl for a 30-yard TD. But it ended a 12-play, 69-yard drive that took four minutes, 26 seconds — an eternity by Duck standards.

Next time out, it was 11 plays, 82 yards and 4:07. It was methodical, and very physical. Terms that aren’t usually associated with these Ducks.

“Sometimes we’re not gonna score fast,” Holmes said. “We’ve just got to knuckle down and drag it out.”

What happened? Oregon stuck to a couple of plays, and ran them, according to right tackle Mark Asper, “over and over and over.”

Four yards here, five there, over and over.

Slam. Bang. Again. And again. Touchdown.

The Ducks took USC’s momentum and crammed it down the Trojans’ throats. Turned an upset into a very satisfying rout.

Speaking of satisfaction, the linemen were exhausted afterward, sure. But they were also fulfilled in a way those quick strikes can’t accomplish.

“It feels good,” Asper said, “because there’s a little more toil on the way. We were wearing ‘em out, and it made it even more possible to do that stuff.”

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